


Misery Loves Company

by JayceCarter



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Loneliness, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Explicit Sex, Sad, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 05:22:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: When Paladin Danse shows up in Goodneighbor having a bad day, John figures it's his job to help out. Unfortunately, things look different when morning comes around, and John has to remember people don't really change.





	Misery Loves Company

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SORRY FOR THE SAD STUFF.
> 
> I promise, no more sad Hancock stuff for a while. Next we will have filthy smut to help make up for this. Lots of filthy smut. No sadness. 
> 
> Also, this is yet another prompt by my darling friend who loves to give me sad prompts. Blame her. <3

John hated the nights.

Probably why he took every fucking chem he could find, why he drowned it all away with alcohol, why he spent nights in the Third Rail where the noise and people and chaos made him forget.

He’d stumble through the dark hours, nothing but a blur of strangers pretending to be friends and mind-numbing stupidity. By the time he left the bar, by the time Fahrenheit had dragged his ass back to the Statehouse the sun would be creeping over the walls of Goodneighbor.

Good enough.

That night, despite being ten already, John still had most of his senses. Usually, by then, he’d have crawled into his tin of mentats, but a late meeting with the vault dweller had shot that plan to hell.

Not that he minded the girl. Sweet, a little too soft-hearted, but fuck if he’d complain about that. He’d dealt with his share of bitches. Sort of nice to see someone changing shit, trying to do right.

She’d taken RJ and disappeared right after the meeting. Fuck, young love was sweet. If anyone deserved some happiness, might be those two. Both young enough to still believe that shit worked out, that love conquered all.

Bullshit, of course, but if anyone could believe it, those two could.

Course that left her traveling companion sitting at the bar alone. He’d abandoned his power armor somewhere, not that it made him take up that much less space. Asshole had shoulders the size of a fridge, even with how he hunched forward over his beer.

Normally, he’d have been spitting insults during the meeting, but he’d been oddly silent. Normally he didn’t come into the Third Rail, preferring to hide away in a hotel room until they left.

So the fuck was up with the man?

Not one to let a good mystery go to waste, John sauntered over and took the seat beside him. “Hey there, tin can.”

He didn’t turn to face John. “What do you want, freak?”

“Well, that was half-hearted. Ain’t even got the energy to insult me properly? Guess you had a hell of a day.”

Danse lifted his beer and took another drink, his gaze locked on the wall behind the bar. Lot of unhappiness on that face.

And not just the normal ‘I hate being here around these abominations, I’d rather be on my flying ship worshiping that man-child Elder’s cock’ unhappiness. Nah, this was new.

“Bad day?”

Danse’s jaw tightened. “None of your business.”

“My town, my business. Call it mayor’s prerogative to get into everyone’s shit.”

He set the beer down hard, like that little show would do shit. “Why don’t you go bother someone who wants to talk to you.”

But, that was the point, wasn’t it? No one there really wanted to talk to John. They wanted to see what they could get from him. The junkies wanted his chems, the criminals wanted to get on his good side, and the women wanted to see what they could get from him. Not a single person in that town wanted shit from John, just from Mayor Hancock.

Was that why he wanted to sit there with Danse? Least this asshole was honest about it.

“Because I like bothering you, crew cut.”

Danse went to respond, but the shouting from some assholes mid-brawl behind them had him turning an annoyed glance. In fact, every sound pulled a reaction from the man.

So, seemed he didn’t care for the noise.

And, for once, John wasn’t feeling it either.

“How about I show you somewhere a little quieter?” John set his elbow on the bar, turning to face Danse. “Statehouse has all the alcohol you could want, and it ain’t got people screaming and fighting.”

“You think I’m going to just follow some freak home?” Danse huffed at the end, even as his fingers traced the label on his beer.

“I think you look like someone who could use a night where you didn’t have to be anyone, didn’t have to look over your shoulder. But, if you’d rather drink your time away in this bar, ain’t any skin off my nose.”

“What are you expecting from me?”

“Ain’t trying to get into your pants, brother. Just consider it one asshole helping another.”

Danse swallowed, his throat working as he tapped his fingers against the beer. Finally, he pushed the bottle away and nodded. “Okay.”

 

#

 

John opened the cabinet with his alcohol. “What’ll you have? Got that same piss you were drinking in the bar.”

Danse hadn’t sat, his body tense and uncomfortable beside the couch. “Whiskey.”

John looked over his shoulder and cocked his eyebrow. “Done playing around, huh? Sure, let’s get good and shit-faced.” He grabbed the bottle and pointed at the couch.

Danse took a seat before John tossed the bottle over.

“You’re not having any?”

John lifted his mentats. “I prefer other forms of turning my brain to mush.”

Danse nodded before he pulled the cap off the whiskey and took his first two big gulps.

Neither spoke for a while, Danse sitting tense on the couch, his gaze anywhere except John. The man was pretty good at ignoring the only other person in the room as he worked his way through a quarter of that bottle in no time.

John kicked his feet up on the table as he chewed the mentats, enjoying the way they coated his teeth.

Danse would have been just his type when he was human. The sort of body that carried muscle like it was nothing, chiseled jaw. Better yet? Man had no idea how good he looked.

Maybe it was all John’s false bravado, but he had a thing for people who didn’t realize they were good looking.

“So, you ready to just spit out what’s got your panties all bunched up, Brotherhood?”

Danse let his gaze settle on John finally, the red on his cheeks saying the whiskey was working itself into him. “I’m not Brotherhood.”

“Guess all that clinking steel with Brotherhood symbols threw me.”

Danse ran his finger around the rim of the whiskey. “They kicked me out and sent someone to kill me.”

Well, that was unexpected. Danse might be an asshole, but he’d been a pretty fucking devoted asshole as far as John had ever seen. “What happened? Fuck a ghoul behind their backs?”

A laugh without humor escaped his throat. “No. As it turns out, I’m a synth.”

“Well, fuck.”

What else was there to say? John still remembered turning ghoul, remembered how the few people he still knew from Diamond City had turned their backs on him. Even the ones from Goodneighbor, some of the traders and shit, they’d tossed him away as soon as he’d changed. He’d pretended it hadn’t mattered.

Fuck ‘em, right?

“So, no, I am not Brotherhood anymore.” Danse tipped the bottle up for another drink, his throat working around the alcohol in a way that had too much of John’s attention.

As if Danse would ever give him a second look.

Even if they weren’t enemies, even if John didn’t look like a fucking corpse, Danse was someone honest, someone real.

John was a junkie and a criminal.

“Well, then those assholes didn’t deserve you. Don’t let ‘em have a fucking second of your thoughts.”

“This coming from you? Someone who spends all your time drinking and doing chems? You’re going to tell me how to cope? If we’re opening wounds here, why don’t you try for some honesty?”

John sucked in a breath through his teeth. He wasn’t used to people talking back to him, to putting him on the spot. Seemed Danse paid more attention that he’d have figured.

“No idea what you’re talking about, brother.”

“So you’re not only a junkie, but a liar, too? I don’t know why I expected more.”

The jab landed, but it pissed John off. Why the fuck did he care what some arrogant ex-Paladin said? Fuck Danse. Fuck this stupid idea.

Except, no matter how much he wanted to believe it, his mouth opened and words he didn’t plan spilled from his lips. “You know why I became a ghoul? Because I didn’t want to see the man I was anymore. Turns out, turning into this doesn’t change shit. Doesn’t matter how I look, doesn’t matter what clothing I put on, doesn’t matter what title I use, I’m still the same piece of shit I’ve always been, and everyone knows it.”

Danse set his whiskey down, his gaze not leaving John. “What if I wanted you to?”

“Wanted me to what?”

“You said earlier you wouldn’t try to get into my pants. What if I want you to?”

John popped another mentat. Probably too much, but the motion hid the whiplash he had going on from the offer. “You don’t mean that, tin can. Whiskey makes people do stupid shit. You don’t strike me as a ghoul fucker.”

“Do you care? You don’t strike me as someone who is all that picky.”

That was true. He’d fucked his way through Goodneighbor more times than he wanted to admit. High on chems, in corners of the Third Rail, on the Statehouse’s couch. He’d had men, women, groups, anything that made him feel like he wasn’t alone for one fucking second.

But they’d all left. They’d looked at him like the charismatic man he pretended to be, given him some cheap orgasms, then walked out. He hadn’t cared, either. None of it was real. Not them, not him, not what they did.

Danse though, Danse knew. John had told him what he’d told no one else. Did he want that? Did he want to fuck someone who knew exactly what he was without all those layers of bullshit John used? Maybe he was just so fucking tired of being alone, even when inside someone, even when twisted up around ‘em, he was alone.

He was about to turn him down again when John took a good look at Danse. The tension in his shoulders, that same pain in his eyes, that sense of longing.

Guess misery loves company, huh? Two of the same. Both broken and thrown out and pretending.

John dropped his mentats into his pocket before standing. “Sure, crew cut, sure. Follow me.”

 

#

 

The sight of Danse without his shirt would have driven John to his knees if he wasn’t so fucking prideful. The paladin didn’t waste any time, having pulled the item off as they walked into John’s bedroom.

Excited? In a rush to get it over with?

Did John care?

John slid his jacket off and tossed it over the desk, followed by his hat. His fingers worked at the buttons of his shirt as Danse sat on the end of the bed to remove his boots.

No jumpsuit. Did they take it from him? Did they strip him of everything he’d had and toss him to the curb?

A strange sense of anger took John, made him want to walk up to that fucking kid playing war and put him in his place. He wanted to do something, to take away that sting. He’d been kicked out of a lot of fucking places, but John deserved that shit. Danse hadn’t. He’d devoted his life to those fuckers and they’d thrown him away like trash. John wanted to burn their shit to the ground for the insult.

Instead, he slid his shirt off and added it to the pile.

Danse removed his pants and underwear in one efficient motion. No slow strip teases for them. Too fucked up, and too old, and too damned worn down for that bullshit. That was for teasing, for seducing.

He wasn’t sure what they were doing, but it wasn’t that.

Danse stared at John as he removed the last of his clothing.

“You having second thoughts there, brother? Thinking maybe ghoul fucking ain’t for you? Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.” John crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the dresser, trying for ease, for nonchalance. Don’t look like it mattered, don’t look like it’s fucking sting if the asshole walked out. “You walk back out, and no one has to be the wiser for your near-miss.”

Danse let his gaze drift over John’s body, but he didn’t react. Did he like what he saw? Was he disgusted by it? Nothing showed on his face as he walked around and sat on the bed. “I’m not here for you to give me advice.”

John’s gaze slid to the jet on the dresser. He could take a hit, further slip into the fog he had going. It’d make this shit easier. Always made it easier. Easier to be who he was supposed to be, who he pretended to be. Easier to ignore the shit he didn’t want to think about. If Danse flinched, if he curled a lip up in disgust, John wouldn’t see it, wouldn’t notice it.

He didn’t.

Couldn’t fucking say why, but he walked to the bed without the jet.

Danse sat there, legs stretched out, every inch on display. Too bad John saw beneath it. He saw the nerves, the twitch of his muscles, the hard set of his lips.

Instead of calling him on it, John leaned over and captured Danse’s lips in a kiss.

He didn’t rush it, didn’t try to steal or take or own. He licked the whiskey from the paladin’s lips while his hand went to his jaw.

Danse didn’t return the kiss right away. His lips stayed still, tense, but the more John played, the more Danse eased. The slightest twitch of the other man’s lips said John had gotten him.

John’s other hand moved down Danse’s chest. He slid over his pectorals, down the ridges of his abs, then stroked through the hair at his groin.

The damn man was perfect. It annoyed John, but maybe that was just because he knew what they looked like together. He fucking knew how his skin, red from the damage, looked against Danse’s tan. He know how the knobs of his joints from his lack of weight looked against Danse’s frame.

He fucking knew it all.

Danse set his hand on John’s hip, but a quick jerk unset the hand. He didn’t need to see whatever was on Danse’s face when his fingers slid into the grooves of John’s skin, when he felt the damage left behind by the radiation burns.

“What, do you have some no touching rule when you sleep with strangers?”

“Why don’t you quiet down, brother. I can keep you plenty occupied.” John moved his lips to Danse’s jaw, kissing over the muscles of his neck, down to his shoulder. Damn, was there an ounce of fat on him?

Danse shoved John back. “I don’t need to be serviced. If I wanted that, I’m sure I could find someone else.”

“What? You want to touch me so you can keep hating yourself for fucking a ghoul? I mean, what fun is it if you can close your eyes and pretend I’m anything else, huh?”

“You’re the only one who keeps bringing up that you’re a ghoul. If you hate yourself so much, tell me to leave. I don’t need or want to be some fix for you.”

“Rich, with all your ‘I’m a synth’ bullshit, you’re one to talk about a little self-loathing, huh?”

Danse tore his gaze away. “This was a mistake.” He sat up, everything in him saying he would leave.

John caught his arm. “Wait. Just, just fucking wait a minute.”

Danse stilled.

John dragged his hand over his face, trying to get his brain to work, trying to get his shit together. “Fuck, just. Don’t go, okay? I don’t get what you’re doing here.”

“You invited me.”

“And you said yeah. Why?”

“I’ve lived whatever of my life is real believing certain things. Some things are good, some are bad. It was easy because I knew what was expected of me, what I needed to do. Any situation I could navigate because I knew with absolute certainty what I had to do. Then it all was taken away, and I don’t know anymore.”

“Explains why you were drinking away your sorrows, but not why you’re here, naked in my bed.”

“Because you’re something I’m not supposed to want. You’re the epitome of what I’ve always been told was an abomination.”

“So I’m just a way to punish yourself?”

Danse shook his head, his gaze dropping. “It’s just the first time I’ve allowed myself to have something I wanted even if I’m not supposed to want it.”

John froze at the words, at the conviction there. The idea that Danse wasn’t just using him, that John wasn’t just a stand-in for his self-loathing, it stole away John’s nerves, his hesitancy. John dragged his tongue over his lips, trying to think.

“If you don’t want me here, I’ll leave. I just thought maybe you’d understand in a way no one else seems to.”

And he did. Fuck, he understood wanting shit you couldn’t have, wanting to be someone the world told you you couldn’t be. He got how a moment of something good could take away the sting when everything turned to shit.

John slid his leg over Danse’s hips, moving into his lap. He kissed him, harder than before, a better idea than talking.

All talking did was get him into trouble.

This time, Danse responded without hesitation. His hands moved over John, fingers dipping into the valleys and grooves of John’s ruined skin. He didn’t pull away from it, didn’t recoil. In fact, when they rolled, Danse’s lips and tongue found the ridges of skin near his collarbone and followed the bottom curve of his ribs where his stomach caved in.

Neither spoke, both taking something from the night. Maybe the same thing. Just a chance to be with someone who knew the bullshit in their head and didn’t try to fix ‘em, didn’t try to change ‘em.

Nah, you couldn’t change people, you could only offer ‘em some company.

So they nursed their wounds in each other. John passed the dark hours he hated against Danse, and when the sun peeked up over the Goodneighbor walls, they laid in the bed.

Light caught the sweat on Danse’s chest, the tiny beads that highlighted his body. They’d run out of energy, or maybe they’d sobered up enough to remember neither were kids anymore.

The sensation of someone in his bed was weird, but fuck, he kind of liked it. His hookups never happened in his room, in his personal space. Still, the way the mattress dipped beneath Danse’s weight, the way his breathing filled the walls, John liked it.

Danse would be leaving. He knew it, knew Danse would follow the vaultie around. She never stayed long in town.

“So, next time-”

Danse sat up, twisting so his feet hit the ground. “There won’t be a next time.”

John pulled back at the sharp words. “I ain’t planning a wedding here, brother. I just meant the next time you’re in town-” John stopped when he looked at Danse’s face.

It was back. Like the man who’d been there all night had woken up, like the man who insulted him at the gates had taken over again. This was the Danse he'd seen for months, the one who spat insults, who called him an abomination.

Every hint of that openness, of whatever the night had been was crushed beneath that look. Not hatred. Nah, John could take hatred, he understood hatred, he fed on hatred.

That was indifference, like he’d gotten off and realized he didn’t need John.

Just another fucking person to use him.

“Right,” John muttered before rolling out of bed and storming to the dresser. He took the jet in his hand, fingers wrapping around the plastic. “Right. So we're back to our expectations, ain't we? Well, you got shit to do, I’m sure.”

Danse pulled his jeans on, then sat at the foot of the bed to put his boots on. “Last night-”

This time John interrupted. Didn’t need to hear any bullshit, any excuses, any wiggling around when Danse realized he was being an asshole. It just scratched him raw like some participation trophy. “Yep. No problem. All part of the mayoral duties, right? Come to Goodneighbor for the orgasms and alcohol. Ain't a town for next times.”

John didn’t dress. Nah, he wanted to look in control, wanted to put back on that stupid costume he wore. Not the hat, not the coat, but the attitude. Mayor John Hancock who fucked anything that breathed and didn’t care about shit.

Danse stopped as he passed him. He didn’t face him, nah, that shit was too personal. Nothing personal about putting your dick in someone, but facing ‘em? Too much. “Look, John.”

John waited. What did he want to hear? This shit wasn’t love, but it was something, damn it. It was a moment of honesty from someone who lied all the time and Danse was shitting all over that.

Danse didn’t say shit though, like ‘look, John’ could explain it.

Guess it did.

John pressed the jet to his lips and inhaled. He held it, then shook his head as he let it out. “Get the fuck out, Brotherhood.”

Misery loves company, but fuck if it doesn’t still leave you in the morning.

  



End file.
